Color, 1983, 103 mins. / Directed by Bruno Mattei ("Vincent Dawn") / Starring Margit Evelyn Newton, Frank Garfield, Selan Karay / Music by Goblin
Anchor Bay (US R0 NTSC) (MSRP $19.98) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9) / DD2.0 Mono
While the zombie films of Lucio Fulci were busy traumatizing audiences around the world, Bruno Mattei's insane Hell of the Living Dead managed to ride along on a wave of unrated ultra-violence. Its zero budget, patchwork construction desperate to ape the success of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (right down to cribbing its Goblin score along with a handful of the band's other cues from Contamination), this film played unrated in the US as Night of the Zombies and in the UK as Zombie Creeping Flesh. Granted, the film does deliver gore in spades, but that's probably the least interesting thing about it.
A chemical lab in New Guinea is sent into an uproar when two of the coworkers accidentally unleash a contagion, thanks to interference of a pesky rat. Rampant flesh eating madness ensues as this company, designed to provide for its third world environment, instead unleashes zombies on the jungle dwelling populace. The International Criminal Police Organization sends a four member team into the fray, led by the intrepid Mike London (Frank Garfield); while not busy trading wisecracks, the men collide with female reporter Lia (Margit Evelyn Newton), an expert on local customs who goes undercover with the natives by painting her naked body and mingling with National Geographic stock footage. After fighting the zombies for an eternity, the gunmen eventually figure out that the zombies must be shot in the head, but that doesn't help much as they continue to pump bullets into the shuffling undead's chests. A lively zombie kid keeps things brewing, too, until we return once again to the chemical plant for the not too shocking final revelation.
Apart from the aforementioned stock footage, Mattei throws just about everything against the wall here to see what might stock. A little mondo footage, some nudity, some city mayhem, jungle mayhem, and in the oddest bit during the climax, one character turned into a human puppet, years before Peter Jackson did the same bit with Brain Dead. The surreal use of Goblin's music proves once and for all that even a good score can be turned to mush in the wrong context, and the hilarious dubbing never comes close to matching the actors' lip movements. God knows what language they were all speaking, considering the Spanish writers and international hodgepodge of performers, but the English voice artists decided to just goof off and cram in as many off the wall lines as they could. The film might be more somber in its Italian incarnation, but it will take a hardy soul to examine both back to back.
Whatever its considerable debits as a film might be, Hell of the Living Dead fares remarkably well on DVD under Anchor Bay's guidance. The transfer improves miraculously over the muddy, grainy theatrical prints which have circulated over the past twenty years, and the less said about the murky VHS editions from Vestron and the like, the better. Most fans will be shocked to see how colorful Mattei's film really is, and at least the gore scenes improve considerably from the bright shades of crimson on display. Also included is a nine minute interview, "Hell Rats of the Living Dead" (also on AB's Rats: Nights of Terror disc), in which Mattei discusses his status as a filmmaker at the time and points out his influences and intentions. The bio by Mark Wickum covers the many odd bases of his career, which ranges from sci-fi to hardcore porn. Add to that a very long European theatrical trailer (which blows far too many highlights), some irreverent and often funny liner notes transcribing a conversation between Shatter Dead director Scooter McCrae and Fango editor Mike Gingold, and a poster/still gallery, and you've got a surefire recipe for one can't-miss party disc guaranteed to be a conversation piece for years to come.
